Southwestern Rock Calendars and Ancient Time Pieces

Native Americans in the Southwest developed sophisticated skills in astronomy and predicting the seasons, centuries before Old World peoples first entered the region. In this presentation Dart discusses the petroglyphs at Picture Rocks, the architecture of the “Great House” at Arizona’s Casa Grande Ruins, and other archaeological evidence of ancient southwestern astronomy and calendrical reckoning; and interpret how these discoveries may have related to ancient Native American rituals.

Allen “Al” Dart, a Registered Professional Archaeologist, has worked and volunteered in Arizona and New Mexico archaeology since 1975. He is the state cultural resources specialist/archaeologist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Arizona and the volunteer executive director of Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, a Tucson nonprofit organization that he founded in 1993 to provide educational and scientific programs in Southwestern archaeology, history, and cultures. Al has received the Arizona Governor’s Award in Public Archaeology and the Arizona Archaeological Society’s Professional Archaeologist of the Year Award for his efforts to bring archaeology and history to the public.